Jimmy Iovine messed up

In an interview with CBS last week Jimmy Iovine, the head of Apple music, kinda messed up. We say messed up, because he implied some things that are not very nice about women, and we say kinda, because it was probably something that was not intentionally malicious or representative of his true feelings towards the fairer sex.

Here’s what happened – Mr Iovine was with Mary J Blige to promote Apple Music, specifically Apple’s most recent Apple Music Ad featuring Ms. Blige, Taraji. P. Henson, and Kerry Washington. All good. He made these comments:

“I always knew that women, some women, at times find it very difficult to find music. And this helps make it easier with playlists, curated by real people, not by algorithms alone. I just thought of a problem: Girls are sitting around, talking about boys, right? Or complaining about boys, when they have their heart broken or whatever, and they need music for that, right? And they need music for that. So it’s hard to find the right music. Not everyone has the right list or knows a DJ.”

Hmm. I think a lot of women would find it a little demeaning to be described as sitting around talking/complainging about boys as their main occupation. A lot of women would also probably find it insulting to hear that the head of Apple Music thinks that they need a service to find music for them because it’s so difficult for them to do it themselves. Simply because they’re women.

Maybe let’s just go ahead and believe that this was Apple Music’s fault in the beginning, for trying to market the service specifically towards women, and failing, because they couldn’t figure out how and why they should be marketing it differently then to their male market. And Iovine had to stand behind that, and find some kind of explanation, and he gave a bad one.

Maybe you can try again, Apple?

Watch the video below.